Did you see President Obama's State of the Union last night? While the President had an optimistic tone, again and again, we saw the same theme of giving more power to corporations at the expense of the people. This is insanity. We need to tell the president that this is disappointing that he shoulf support policies on food, water and trade that help people and communities grow and create new businesses and not support corporate interests. We need to recover the dynamic creative industrial environment we had before the Bush administration.

The First, Question he had to answer was how would he define the economic challenges that preoccupy the country? Would he stress the populist theme of inequality, which raises the divisive issue of redistribution, or would he emphasize instead the more unifying theme of opportunity and upward mobility?

The president's answer to the first question was unmistakable. He invoked the classic American belief in "opportunity for all -- the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead." Indeed, he argued, "Opportunity is who we are. And the defining project of our generation is to restore that promise."

“This will not be easy”, he acknowledged. “Our current economic ills have been long in the making and reflect forces beyond the agendas of either political party. Over more than three decades," he said, "even before the Great Recession hit, massive shifts in technology and global competition had eliminated a lot of good, middle-class jobs, and weakened the economic foundations that families depend on."

The president mentioned the widening inequality between those at the top and everyone else, he focused on stagnating wages, stalled mobility, and the millions of working Americans struggling to get by, let alone ahead, along with the millions who aren't working at all. Our job, he said, is to "reverse these tides"--by speeding up growth, strengthening the middle class, and building new ladders of opportunity into the middle class.

The Second, in response to these challenges, what balance would he strike between a traditional legislative agenda and the alternative--much discussed in recent days--of executive actions he could take without congressional approval? The third, would his speech emphasize governance, or would it tilt toward rallying his party's base supporters for what may be a very difficult midterm election, with control of the Senate at stake?

Well… , How do we accomplish that? The Republicans believe that lower taxes will create good jobs. How does that work? Lower taxes equal only more income for the wealthy, but there is no trickle down … never, has there ever been anything like that. No trickle down economy has ever existed. The Economic policy of the Red Party is simply self-serving trash. The policies of the Red party are forcing the continued shrinkage of the middle class.

We know that the Koch brothers, Pete Peterson and Wall Street CEOs aren’t going to accept the President’s approach to addressing income and wealth inequality. They are going to double-down on their extreme agenda and we must be prepared to respond. These approaches, to eliminate or alter Social Security, are simply parasitic, designed to further damage the American worker.

We must keep Social Security Cuts out of the Presidents Budget. With the exception of a few minutes on foreign policy –- the core of which was to declare an end of the era of “permanent war” –- Obama zeroed in on proposals to extend the economic recovery to all Americans, not just to Wall Street investors and CEOs. Last year, President Obama put a Social Security cut called the Chained CPI in his budget, and even with his rhetorical shift, he still might propose benefit cuts in his budget this year.Americans must continue to lift up voices like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Tom Harkin who have led the fight to change the conversation. But we can’t get there on our own.

Facing congressional Republicans poised to say “no” on almost every legislative front –- with the possible exception of immigration reform –- the president made a virtue of necessity by promising to use his own executive powers to raise wages, train workers and entice the private and nonprofit sectors to do their part to create jobs, use new technology and lure investors to the U.S. What else could he do?

Has the President the Democrats or Republicans in Congress demonstrated good Design Intelligence?

He insisted that he wanted Congress to raise the minimum wage and extend long-term unemployment benefits. But both ideas have widespread public support and are essentially pragmatic fixes long considered to be part of the American mainstream.

Obama swung for the fences in his first term, and with success: He got reelected. But he whiffed disastrously last year, his administration reeling from spying controversies, congressional confrontations and a botched rollout of Obama care. The Patriot Act is the most serious threat to American Democracy is the history of the nation. President Obama needed to denounce the Patriot Act and failed to do so. This will be expensive to the Democratic Party, when they try to repair the damage Two Years from now.

The result is a job-approval rating in the low-40s, the kind that can cripple a presidency by making the chief executive a political pariah. The problem with the Obama Administration is they did not solve the problem of creating jobs for Americans. The problem of preventing jobs for Americans is the Republican Party’s primary objective. The GOP has routinely obstructed all efforts to create new family supporting jobs since the President was elected to his first term of office.

Last night, President Obama told us once again that he wants to fix income inequality in this country. He even announced a minimum wage increase for government contractors, which is one step in the right direction... but if he's serious about better pay for ordinary Americans, he shouldn't be pushing for trade deals that will bolster corporate profits and let corporations move jobs overseas, not to mention taking away communities' rights to protect themselves from corporate abuses. The reality is that we do not want corporations controlling our country.

If he succeeds, his trade deals (including the Trans-Pacific Partnership) would lead to more imports of potentially unsafe foods and the export of fracked gas. It would put corporate profits ahead of people's health and safety. Serious concerns exist. We are disappointed that he is supporting trade deals that put corporations above the interests of people and communities.

When it comes to fracking for oil and gas, President Obama's State of the Union speech touted his "all of the above" energy plan as a success, even though his administration has repeatedly scuttled investigations into the damaging impacts of fracking, like water contamination. Fracking is a dangerous practice that is damaging the aquifers and creating the potential for large sink holes to occur. He also said he doesn't want to leave our children with the impacts of climate change. The reality is that fracking hurts communities, damages ground water, and more fossil fuel is not a solution to our energy woes or the climate crisis.

Even though President Obama said he wants to protect our pristine public lands, his administration is still considering opening them up to more oil and gas fracking. This is bad policy because it is adverse to the physics of climate change. We need to share a clear message with the president that the Physics always wins. Fracking is not a safe way to extract more of the fossil fuel that is driving climate change.

President Obama mentioned the debate over the proper size of our government. We can't let that debate compromise the safety of our food by cutting funding that the USDA needs, to empower the proper inspection of poultry. In the State of the Union, he spoke about his interest in streamlining the government, but he's doing so at the expense of our health and safety when he lets the meat industry do their own safety inspections. These corporations do not care about anything other than profits. That's letting the fox guard the henhouse, and it's no way to keep our food safe.So, as Obama laid out his 2014 plans in his State of the Union, he committed to what the major leagues call “small ball”: incremental executive branch maneuvers to aid the economy, with the aim of creating jobs and restoring the president’s standing. That is not a good strategy in general, but he anticipates that the Republican Party will continue to obstruct all efforts to put America back to work and to drive wages through the floor. The fix must fit the problem.

In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama promised to use 32 executive actions and the example-setting and convening powers of his office to drive in economic runs on behalf of working people.

The goal is a politically indispensable one: to slowly but surely pull the president’s job-approval rating out of the dismal -- and debilitating -– low-40 percent muck in which it has been mired since the fall.

“We had a terrible fall,” a senior administration official told me before the speech. “We had the NSA and the budget confrontations and the botched rollout of the health care website,” he said. “What we need to do now is put one foot in front of the other and move forward, and let a stronger economy get us back on track.” And, quite obviously, where the current Republican Party is concerned, “You can always count on them to say something stupid,”

The rest of the president’s strategic reasoning has to do with his assessment of his opposition. He thinks that if he plays things cautiously now –- if he avoids giving GOP adversaries a big target -– they will self-destruct.

The dark side however did emerge, after two years of obstruction by the Republican House of Representatives, Congressman Tim Huelskamp, blew his career away. “For some people seeing a black man address the nation on national tee vee causes them to lose their sh*t.

Obviously this is a sad embarrassment for the Republican party, they no longer say "YOU LIE" out loud while the President speaks, instead they tweet it recklessly…. You know so that there is an undeniable printed copy…. For the entertainment of their hate mob following while he's speaking. Rude and very unethical!

When he relized he was discovered and exposed in the discourse and that Rachel was exposing his hate speech on live tee vee, he vainly tried to divert attention away by... you guessed it... a "WHAT ABOUT BENGAAAAAAAAAAHZIII!11!!" rant.

He began a lunatic meltdown by saying (I kid you not), "the President very clearly ran against the military by bringing them home" which fed into his Benghaaaaazi conspiracy theory, the Congressman stated the President acted "irreprehensible", having no idea (apparently) that he had just unintentionally said the President was blameless.

He added some rather strange references to "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!" Then he denounced Rachel as a "cheerleader". He followed by saying if the President issues any Executive Orders they will be by definition "unlawful" and "lawless"…. You know a good lie is hard to pass up so he also claimed President Obama is the one who created income inequality. That means the Obama is responsible for the fact that 90% of the wealth in America is in the possession of only the top 10% of the people. Consequently, after the self- inflicted humiliation, Rachel ended the segment by calling him (to his face), "spectacularly disingenuous".

Naturally There is additional criticism by an individual who refuses to acknowledge physical reality exists. Speaker Boehner, meanwhile, has apparently realized that once you've obstructed everything and shut down the government, you have no leverage left of the ordinary variety. So it sounds like he's threatening impeachment instead:

President Obama, understanding that the Republican House of Representatives has essentially abdicated its responsibility to govern, has signaled his intention to use executive authority to actually accomplish things on behalf of the American people, such as a minimum wage increase for federal contractors.

The House GOP "will continue to look closely at whether the president is faithfully executing laws, as he took an oath to do,” Boehner told reporters after a meeting of the Republican conference. “We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans.”

The intent here is to further obstruct progress for hard working Americans by Speaker of the House Boehner.

When asked what the House would do if lawmakers determined Obama skirted the Constitution, Boehner said only, “There are options that are available to us.” Republicans, he said, would discuss them at their annual retreat, which begins Wednesday in Cambridge, Md.

Was this an impeachment threat? It's hard to read it any other way, given the fact that the House has done everything short of that in their attempts to make Obama's presidency a failure. The single most vile political conduct in the history of the United States short of the shooting Alexander Hamilton. So this is where we're at: Speaker Boehner is telling Obama that his presidency will be useless, and if he tries to make it anything other than useless, he will resort to options that haven't yet been used. And there aren't very many of those left on the table now, are they?

Obvious lies..... INSANE? Good Design Intelligence that will improve his chances of being elected to another term? Not a chance!

Wealth inequality in the United States refers to the unequal distribution of assets among residents of the United States. We understand that Wealth includes the values of homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments. Just prior to President Obama's 2014 State of the Union Address, media reported that the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%. The gap between the top 10% and the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1000% for the top 1%. The average employee "needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour." The Republican party is largely responsible for creating the wealth gap in the United States.

Although different from income inequality, the two are related. In Inequality for All—a 2013 documentary with Robert Reich in which he argued that income inequality is the defining issue for the United States—Reich states that 95% of economic gains went to the top 1% net worth (HNWI) since 2009 when the recovery allegedly started. The Republican Party has blocked all efforts to empower a more equal distribution of the wealth in America or around the world.

A 2011 study found that US citizens across the political spectrum dramatically underestimate the current US wealth inequality and would prefer a far more egalitarian distribution of wealth. Consequently most Americans want to take the economy in the direction of greater equality in the manner in which wealth is distributed. All wealth required labor before someone could amass it. That all the wealth is created by labor is simply beyond dispute and consequently… why is the distribution of America’s wealth so unequal?

There is an important distinction between income and wealth. Income refers to a flow of money over time in the form of a rate (per hour, per week, or per year); wealth is a collection of assets owned. In essence, income is specifically what people receive through work, retirement, or social welfare whereas wealth is what people own. While the two are seemingly related, income inequality alone is insufficient for understanding economic inequality for two reasons:1. It does not accurately reflect an individual's economic position2. Income does not portray the severity of financial inequality in the United States.

Wealth is usually not used for daily expenditures or factored into household budgets, but combined with income it comprises the family's total opportunity "to secure a desired stature and standard of living, or pass their class status along to one's children". Republican doctrine creates a polarization of wealth creating an America where the wealthy get wealthier and the Middle class get poorer. Democrats are working to reverse this trend because it is bad for America. Moreover, "wealth provides for both short- and long-term financial security, bestows social prestige, and contributes to political power, and can be used to produce more wealth. The Citizens United Decision was forced upon America by Supreme Court Justices who embrace the Republican dogma. Hence, wealth possesses a psychological element that awards people the feeling of agency, or the ability to act. The accumulation of wealth grants more options and eliminates restrictions about how one can live life. Dennis Gilbert asserts that the standard of living of the working and middle classes is dependent upon income and wages, while the rich tend to rely on wealth, distinguishing them from the vast majority of Americans. They see them selves as the aristocracy of America. That aristocracy is using wealth to create and then sustain a plutocracy that will control the government with their money.

In 2007, the top 10% wealthiest possessed 80% of all financial assets. However, after the Great Recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 10% of the population grew from 80% to 90% by 2012, leaving only ten percent of the people to share the remaining 10% of the assets amongst themselves. Consequently since a small minority have a lock on the money, it is very difficult for middle class Americans to make good wages, labor is not compensated fairly because good jobs are increasingly scarce. Few workers will ever have the opportunity to build wealth of their own under the current circumstances. Obama is in favor of fixing this problem. Republicans like it the way it is. Is that good Design Intelligence?

Remember the GOP asserting that Obamcare would be a political disaster? Well they were right it was a political disaster, but one that turned inside out on them. Ask any Republican in Congress and they'll tell you that Obamacare is an enormous political disaster. Which party does a better job of dealing with health care? Well the polls demonstrate that Obama-care is a political success story.

Those numbers come from the latest Pew national survey, and the only sense in which they are a disaster is that despite betting everything on Obamacare repeal, Republicans still trail Democrats on dealing with health care. The only positive gloss you could put on the numbers for Republicans is that before health care reform became a partisan dividing line, Democrats used to have a 20+ point advantage. But that was when reform was an abstract notion — now it's a concrete reality.

In September, Pew showed Republicans with a one-point advantage on health care. And now, despite the "rocky rollout," Democrats have the edge again. I wouldn't be surprised if that earlier poll wasn't a bit of an outlier, but the key point is this: Despite Republican predictions that the implementation of Obamacare would be a political disaster for Democrats, the reality has been anything but.

Rather than become less radical and less out of touch with reality the GOP has embraced a new and more outrageous posture. Ignoring the reality of the physics and embracing the idea that lies are better than the facts; House Republicans selected Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who is on the record questioning whether humans are causing climate change, to head of the Science Committee's environment subcommittee.

Schweikert will replace Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who moved to the House Appropriations Committee. He said he plans to use his new post to target the Obama administration's regulatory agenda. The problem is that regression is damaging. Climate change is serious and a prudent regulatory agenda is imperative.

"Too often, this Administration has tried to bypass Congress and impose its will on the American people through regulatory fiat,” Schweikert said Thursday in a statement, The Hill reported. “We have a responsibility to provide a check-and-balance to ensure there is fairness and openness in the process and that taxpayers are not being subjected to onerous and unnecessarily burdensome rules and regulations." Clearly there is a substantial failure to acknowledge the reality of climate change among many other concerns confronting the nation. Correction of the current trend to destroy the working class for example is imperative. The current Republican Party has routinely endorsed and supported the doctrine of unlimited greed. They refuse to vote in favor of raising the minimum wage or to give employees who receive tips any kind of raise in the minimum wage. Out of touch with the real world is not a cogent political policy in any of the issues above.

President Obama said in his State of the Union Adress, "And when our children's children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did." Let’s do our part by standing up for climate action today.

A main component of the Obama administration's environmental work is new limits on power plants' greenhouse gas pollution. Schweikert has argued that the idea of man-made global warming may be "folklore." I have no choice but to denounce this statement as the work of an individual who is ignorant beyond forbearance and unqualified for the duty he has assumed.

Congressman Schweikert is in fact not in compliance with the facts and chooses to be a liar and sustains denial even after a 98% concensus by the worlds Climate Scientists has been established. The physics does not care, the physics of climate change is a fact, voting this way or that way will not change anything. The physics will prevail. The best description of an individual who denies the physics is the word “fool”. Perhaps he believes that he can deny the force of gravity as well. His error is that ridiculous.

Physics always wins! You can always win the bet on Physics so is denial of the physics good Design Intelligence?

President Obama delivered a powerful vision for climate activism in his State of the Union address. With Congress bogged down in partisan gridlock, administration actions, mainly through the Environmental Protection Agency, are our best hope this year to push forward meaningful limits on America's climate pollution. Because climate deniers and the friends of the fossil fuel industry on Capitol Hill have already mobilized to stop EPA climate action in its tracks, activism must be expanded. All Climate change deniers must be driven out of the Congress of the United States.

"Understanding what part of climate change is part of a natural cycle and what part has human components is the first step," he said as a candidate in 2008. "Our elected officials must be careful to react to facts and not folklore." DUH!

In a Facebook post last year, however, Schweikert seemed to indicate that reducing carbon dioxide emissions might be a good thing -- while bashing President Barack Obama's efforts to do so. He wrote on June 25:“In light of Obama's 'climate change' speech today, I would like to REMIND him that at the time of its expiration, the Kyoto Protocol mandated that developed nations reduce their CO2 output by an average of 5.2%. Though we never ratified the Kyoto protocol, our country was able to REDUCE CO2 through new technology in the private sector, NOT top-down, economic crushing government mandates.”

He means we started using more natural gas.

The Kyoto Protocol is the international treaty on climate change that took effect in 2004, which the United States declined to join. A significant portion of the reduction in emissions that the U.S. has achieved since then is due to rising consumption of natural gas, which is noted in a blog post that Schweikert linked to in his post. That, and the recession.

DUH!

Schweikert will have good company in Science Committee leadership. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is also a climate change denier.

Democrats criticized the appointment. But more importantly the physics does not care because the physics always wins.

"Every time we think congressional Republicans have proven they’re completely out of touch with reality, they go and outdo themselves," said Josh Schwerin, press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "By putting a climate change denier in charge of a subcommittee on the environment, congressional Republicans are further cementing the fact that their only real priority is protecting special interests and their big oil backers." King Coal needs to be added to that statement but you can feel the frustration of dealing with fools.

Many issues exist that need our attention in this nation but apparently there no De sign Intelligence anywhere in the Republican Party. Personally the current trend of denial and procrastination telegraphs a clear message, there is no cogent Republican leadership in the party to be discovered.

Any member of Congress in denial of the physics is a fool. Electing fools is popular among Republicans based upon the statistics.

SPYING on AMEROCAN CITIZENS

Is spying on the American people a violation of the Constitution? Yes the current practice (Patriot Act) is illegal. Per AMENDMENTS IV & V of the Bill of rights. (according to constitutional scholars)

"There is no doubt that the actions of Edward Snowden may have damaged the security interests of several nations in the short term," Bård Vegar Solhjell wrote in a joint statement with fellow parliamenterian Snorre Valen. "We are, however, convinced that the public debate and change in policy that have followed in the wake of Snowden’s whistle blowing has contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order."

The debate rages over the matter. We will comment later about the issue in a seperate post. Outrageous has been achieved but is it Insane to have a secret government inside the government? I am on the YES side of that one.